Sudan's government has announced its official recognition of the new Republic of South Sudan, a day before its southern neighbor becomes the world's newest nation.

In a statement broadcast on state television, Sudanese Minister of Presidential Affairs Bakri Hassan Saleh said, "The Republic of Sudan declares that it recognizes the state of South Sudan from July 9."

The south is scheduled to secede from after midnight on July 8, a split agreed in the climax of a 2005 peace deal that ended a decades-old civil war.